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Parenting Perspectives: Starting school means a new identity for daughter and mother

When my now kindergartner was 2, she started telling me about things she did when I wasn’t there and people she knew whom I hadn’t met.

From my copious new-mom reading, I knew babies slowly learn they are a separate identity from their parents. It hadn’t occurred to me until then that I would need to learn Eve was separate from me.

Fast-forward several years and one elementary school, and our separate identities are more apparent than ever. Eve, 5, even has her own school ID number.

Now she spends more than 7 hours a day doing interesting things without me, with people I mostly haven’t met.

It’s a much different experience than when we were part of a home-based “daycare family,” or the last two years at a morning-only preschool center.

Preschool drop-off and pick-up meant daily face-time with Eve’s teacher. I saw the art projects hanging on the wall, got to know the other kids by name, and chitchatted with other parents over the sign-in and -out sheet.

Because Eve now rides the bus, I have limited interaction with all those people.

Instead of teacher recaps, I have to rely on Eve’s somewhat scattered recollection of the day. (“There was just so much fun stuff, I can’t remember it,” she tells me.) The kids in her class are largely just names on a snack list, and their parents email addresses on the teacher’s listserv.

The handful of preschool and playgroup friends we knew would be at the same school are all in different classrooms. I’m thankful Eve has become “besties” with the one girl whose mother I knew.

That mom, the room parent, emailed to see if I knew any parents who could help at an upcoming classroom party.

I don’t even know any of the other parents, I replied sheepishly.

Growing up in a small town where everyone knew everybody else, this has been the biggest paradigm shift for me, as I adapt to my new identity as the parent of a school-ager.

While Eve seems to be plenty popular among her classmates – “They must really like me,” my mini-Sally Field exclaimed one day when several had given her marker-adorned paper hearts – I still feel like the new kid, anonymous and a little lost.

I attended my first PTA meeting – a sentence that makes me feel oh-so-middle-aged – in hopes of making more connections. I eagerly put all the school’s events on our family calendar.

Because Eve becoming a kindergartner means I’m also beginning to identify as part of a new community, even if I still don’t know its members.

I think that’s why, when Eve’s teacher sent home a note a few weeks ago that her classmate’s mother had died, I took it kind of hard.

Like I said, I didn’t know this woman. I hadn’t met her daughter. But I cried for her.

I emailed the teacher asking if there was something we parents could do.

After all, we’re all part of the same “school family.”

It’s a new identity – for Eve and me.

Sherri Richards is a reporter for The Forum and mom to 5-year-old Eve and 2-year-old Owen. She can be reached at srichards@forumcomm.com